Haapanen, Brown Victorious at Ben Brown Invitational

UCSB senior Amy Haapanen and freshman Alyssa Brown continued their winning ways Saturday at the Ben Brown Invitational, as both took home victories for the third consecutive meet to begin the 2007 season. Haapanen captured first in the discus (154-05) and shot put (48-02.75) on Saturday at Mt. San Antonio College, while suffering her first loss of the season by finishing third in the hammer (205-07) on Friday at Cal State Fullerton. Brown took the 1500 meters in a time of 4:39.43 for the third victory in as many meets of her young career and in the process qualified for the Big West Championships. In total the Gauchos added seventeen new conference qualifying marks and two NCAA Regional qualifying marks.

Not to be outdone, the UCSB distance men produced seven conference qualifiers lead by senior Mike Chavez's second place finish in the 5000 meters in 14:24.45 on Friday night. Following Chavez in the race were Scott Smith (14:38.26), Micah Tyhurst (14:46.55) and Waleed Totari (14:52.65) all qualifying for conference in the process. Those in attendance for the1500 meters on Saturday observed Gauchos J.D. Krawczyk (3:55.41), Jeff Campbell (3:55.69) and Tim Aukshunas (3:56.31) finish third, fourth and fifth respectively all under the conference qualifying mark of 3:57.00.

The Gaucho men obtained their 2nd NCAA Regional mark of 2007 as junior Reif Lawson hit the standard in the hammer. Junior Scott Anderson continues to impress as he moved up the all-time list in the discus from ninth to eighth with a toss of 165-04 good for sixth place on Saturday. Also in the discus, Gauchos Nick Sheuerman (147-04) and Tim Delmundo (148-09) created two more Big West qualifiers. Senior Kyle Baker seems to improve every week as he set a personal best this week of 187-04 in the javelin.